Is gone
sold
not long after her death
just like
the musty old
oriental rug
rolled up
drug out
beat
while making disgusted grimaces and squinting
amidst an operetta
of dust
the candy dish
auctioned
while still cradling
Peruginas
Italian hazelnuts in chocolate
wrapped in silver-blue
coats
and some crappy
melt in your mouth
mints
swiped from a diner
God knows when
you know
the kind
you just dip your grimy paw
into
ignoring the shiny
silver sanitary
tongs
that sorely limit
the scope
of your peppermint
haul
My Grandparents weathered
The Great Depression
today
Everyone’s depressed
but this was
An Era
and everyone was too busy
trying to scrape
2 nickels
together
to think about
how they
felt
My grandfather would pocket
Howard Johnson jams
even as late as
nineteen seventy four
those
single serving
sepulchres of sweetness
left on
the table
and died
with a boysenberry
still in his trousers
Grandma’s
candy dish
was on a
swivel
so you could
align yourself
perfectly
with your favourite
treat
I’m
sorry
i was too young
and nomadic
to keep it
all my belongings
fitting neatly
in the womb of my car
I had
antlers
and copper pots
an I Ching
and some tarot
cards
armfuls of stones and bones and feathers
collected
from where my feet
touched
the earth
but no room
for Grandma’s
lollipop green
dream of a
candy dish
which held more
than confections
but was a spinning mandala of
patient love
waiting for
travellers
to master
the art
of sitting a spell
in the mothball
nimbus
of silence
as the room
incrementally
grew dark
encased in the web
of the evenings
weaving
a shawl
frail and delicate
draped over slender
shoulders
hiding precious stars
Stuff slips away, leaving lingering memories and wishes for the old times. Sometimes I wish for my faded-red VW bug. It was rusty and old in 1971. What would it be now.? I moved from Monmouth to Corvallis in that ramshackle of a car. It held all my stuff, including a Stickley rocking chair too valuable to leave behind. Now I have a storage unit. What is in there that I need so badly to be paying a monthly fee? Things gone remain memories. Feelings of times past. Warm. Comforting. Remembrances of loved ones. (Oh, to take one more Perugina from the candy dish while Grandmother smiles at me from her chair with a shawl draped over frail shoulders.) Stuff holds us to the ground. Memories help us soar. Maybe it is time to face the storage unit. I think that I would like to soar.
Yes, Darrel, memories seem a wee bit lighter to carry, and “belongings” question, what belongs to me? What still holds attachment? I am grateful for those meagre things still carried. A rose carafe and cup that now sit upon my bedside table, that graced my grandmother’s lips. A pocket knife once carried in my Grandfather’s pocket, when he was a boy. Still, much more I’ve given away, allowing their lives and memories to continue in ways I can no longer see, but trust in the flow of giving and the new memories they’ll create. However and wherever they may roam.
Beautiful poem brother. My parents loved it too. Thanks for reminding readers that elder ways continue to connect us after death, even when belongings move beyond our physical reach.
Watt, thank you. Elder ways ringing clearer and dearer, as we ourselves step into the foyer of eldership. Shaking off a dusting of snow, from an ancestors woollen coat, as we squeeze through the doorway. Beholding miracles once again, as we did when we were children. The sacred symmetry of a snowflake, before it quickly melts. Regarding it deeply, with a smile…And, Cheers and best to your parents… gems that they are.
Lovely poem, thank you
Rod, thanks so much.